I like this piece. Online popularity still seems to get a bad rap. This writer argues that it has come to stay as part of civilization and it is even upending conventional metrics of popularity.

"So that means that online, everyone is in the same pool. Whether you are a big company or just a little guy with a camera-equipped smartphone, you’re fighting the same fight. To me, that means that if you can become popular online, you’re actually doing something significantly more difficult.

Because online, everyone has access to the tools and everyone is fighting for the same attention. If you’re watching television, the news will be there at 7 every night. But Facebook, you don’t know what the hell you’re going to see day to day. It’s much harder to cut through that noise.

The internet is the new New York — if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."